IS8 MAMMALIA ORDER VI. UNGULATA. 



BO nearly allied that it is very difficult to distinguish between them. In this 

 Caprine section both sexes are provided with horns, but those of the females 

 are much inferior in size to those of the males. They are usually compressed, 

 triangular in cross section, and marked with bold, transverse ridges or 

 wrinkles, while they may either curve backwards or outwards, or may be 

 spirally twisted. The muzzle is usually completely covered with hair ; the 

 gland below the eye is either very small or totally absent ; the tail is 

 generally short and flattened ; and glands are often present between the 

 hoofs. With the exception of one species of goat, the females have but a 

 single pair of teats. The molar teeth are characterised by the great height 

 of their crowns, those of the upper jaw having only four crescentic columns. 

 In the skull a depression below each eye may or may not be developed. 

 In the true goats, constituting the genus Capra, the long horns are laterally 

 compressed, and either curve backwards in a bold sweep, with an outward 

 inclination at the tips, or are spirally twisted. There is neither a gland 

 beneath the eye nor a depression of the skull in the same region ; the chin 

 is more or less distinctly bearded ; the males emit a powerful and 

 characteristic odour ; and, if glands are developed between the hoofs, these 

 are confined to the fore feet. The true goats are mainly confined to the 

 mountains of Europe and Asia, although sparingly represented in Abyssinia, 

 Egypt, and Palestine. In Europe there are two species, viz., the ibex (G. 

 ibex) and the Spanish ibex (G. pyrenaica), of which the former was confined 

 to the Alps, but is now extinct in its pure form, although a half-breed 

 between this and the domestic goat exists in certain districts. The ibex is 

 easily recognised by the bold transverse ridges or knobs on the front of its 

 scimitar-like horns, whereas in the Spanish ibex these are much less 

 developed, and the curvature tends to become spiral. Mr. A. Chapman writes 

 that this goat survives in some of the secluded valleys on the Spanish side of 

 the Pyrenees, and finds a congenial home in the elevated Cordilleras of 

 Central Spain, especially in the Sierra de Gredos the apex of the long 

 range which forms the watershed between the Tagus and the Douro, and 

 continues to Portugal as the Sierra de Estrelha. In the south of Spain the 

 ibex occurs in the Sierra Morena, and especially in the Sierra Nevada, as 

 well as the Sierra Bermeja, which runs parallel with the Mediterranean ; 

 but examples from these localities differ somewhat from those of the northern 

 and central ranges, and Schimper distinguished the southern race as Capri 

 hispanica. In the Gredos and Nevada ranges the ibex leave the vicinity of 

 the snow, or, at least, the most rugged and inaccessible ground, after sunset 

 only, when they descend to feed ; and under no circumstances are they 

 found, even in winter, amongst forest or covert of any kind ; but in the 

 lower ranges of the Bermeja and Palmitera, which do not exceed 4800 feet 

 in height, and where the scrub and even pine trees attain the summit, they 

 are found comparatively low down, and may be hunted over ground that 

 looks far more suitable for roe-deer. But wherever found, the races have 

 one habit in common : they take refuge on the narrowest ledges, 

 where it seems hardly possible that their bodies can pass, and still 

 further avail themselves of crevices and recesses in the wall of rock. 

 In the Caucasus there are at least two species of goats, one known 

 as C. cylindricornis, in which the horns in curvature, smoothness, and 

 colour are so like those of certain wild sheep as to render it almost 

 impossible to draw any valid distinction between the two groups. 

 Of wild goats five well-defined species are recognised from India, four of 



